


Hodor's Long Night

by Lady_in_Red



Series: ASOIAF in the BookWorld [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Crossover, F/M, Gen, Humor, book canon, relationship implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 04:56:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18887608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_in_Red/pseuds/Lady_in_Red
Summary: The book characters ofA Song of Ice and Firewatch Season 8 Episode 3, "The Long Night."





	Hodor's Long Night

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place inside the BookWorld, a creation of Jasper Fforde’s _Thursday Next_ series. The conceit of the series is that book characters live in a world where they know they are fictional, and have lives outside of canon when their stories are not being read. These characters often refer to the real world as “the Outland” and items from that world are highly prized and frequently pirated. Thursday Next herself is a detective who investigates crimes in the BookWorld.

This was a bad idea. Hodor had become increasingly sure of that over the last few hours, but he’d felt he had no choice.

Eight years after the publication of  _ A Dance With Dragons _ , the characters of A Song of Ice and Fire had grown first anxious, then concerned, and finally resigned to never knowing how their stories ended. The sample chapters that had been released in the intervening years only complicated matters. Previews were unpublished, and thus not built in the BookWorld and not considered canon. Anything could change before publication. That left Stannis Baratheon, in particular, in a cruel limbo, not knowing if his character survived to continue his quest for the Iron Throne. 

At first, Hodor had placated the characters by allowing them to watch the television series “Game of Thrones,” but once the show passed the point where the books left off, he’d stopped procuring DVDs, not wanting to contaminate the characters’ performances with details from the show that may not translate to the remaining books. 

But now the characters knew that the final season was airing, and they’d started coming to him, one at a time, asking to see their characters’ fates. Hodor had thought about it a lot. Since he had no real lines, he could even think about it when he was being read. And finally he had asked the detective Thursday Next for advice. She’d helped them before, and he needed her perspective. Reluctantly, she admitted that it might help morale within the books. 

So Thursday had acquired a bootleg copy of “The Long Night,” and Hodor had sent personal invitations to select characters. At Thursday’s behest, he’d only invited characters who appeared in the episode. It was too much to expect that they would keep this screening to themselves, but given the episode’s tight focus, it was not precisely a spoiler that some characters weren’t included. When Ser Davos realized that Lord Stannis hadn’t received an invitation, he begged Hodor to allow him to attend. It wasn’t the definitive answer the man’s death scene might have been, but his absence spoke volumes. 

Hodor’s own absence spoke volumes, but he’d never been under the delusion that he was anything more than a cog in the machine. 

The first to arrive were Stannis and Davos, talking quietly together and sipping ale. Melisandre drifted in behind them. Both Theon Greyjoy and Reek followed soon after, Reek sitting in a corner muttering to himself. The Starks arrived in a pack, as they often did. Young Arya, led by No One, naive Sansa and her more worldly version from A Storm of Swords, followed by Alayne Stone. Young Bran and the Three-Eyed Crow, followed by Jon Snow the steward and Jon Snow the Lord Commander. Both were understandably confused about their inclusion here.  

Tyrion Lannister, Varys, Beric Dondarrion, Dolorous Edd Tollett, Samwell Tarly, the Hound, and Tormund Giantsbane arrived all at once, distracting Hodor with their clamoring for wine, ale and snacks. He only realized that Daenerys Targaryen had arrived because the room went silent. She and her advisors sat apart from the others, looking with suspicion upon the other characters, whom she’d never met in canon. 

The only trouble occurred when the shorn and somewhat unhinged Cersei of  _ A Dance with Dragons _ arrived uninvited. “If this is the end, I should be here,” she insisted. “I’m the queen.”

_ Dowager queen. _ Even he didn’t dare say that out loud. Hodor smiled apologetically and fetched her a flagon of wine to take with her. “You aren’t in the episode. It takes place entirely at Winterfell.”

She grimaced. “Oh. Of course. I wouldn’t abandon Tommen to go North,” Cersei said with a sniff. She took the flagon and flounced away. 

Hodor sighed in relief and checked the clocks lining one wall of the small council chambers he used as his headquarters. Keeping his characters ready to go as they were needed by readers took a great deal of organization. At least he, unlike his on-page and screen characters, could say more than simply “Hodor.” Much of the Western Hemisphere slept, but they wouldn’t much longer, and commuters in major cities were bigger readers than ever now that they didn’t have to tote heavy hardback tomes with them to read  _ A Song of Ice and Fire _ . 

Brienne slipped into the room, her ruined cheek and one-handed Lannister-armored companion marking them as Jaime and Brienne from  _ A Feast for Crows _ . Her squire Podrick followed with Gendry from his time with the Brotherhood without Banners.

“Let’s begin,” he said, walking with his lumbering stride to the far end of the room, where he hid a television behind a curtain. Opening the curtain took but a moment, and with a few taps of a remote control, the HBO logo filled the screen. 

He stepped back, blew out a few candles, and waited, tapping his fingers nervously against his mug of ale. He didn’t normally indulge, but the tension in this room demanded it. 

The muttering began during the theme song, and Hodor abruptly wished he’d asked Thursday to tell him what happened. Or had happened. He purposefully knew nothing about the show beyond season 5, and nothing of the final books beyond bootleg copies of the teaser chapters from  _ The Winds of Winter _ . Even he was surprised to see so few locations remaining in the credits, and all of them in Westeros.

As Thursday had promised, the episode jumped right to the start of the battle. All they would see is the fight against the Others, with little other plot presented.

The brothers of the Night’s Watch started whispering to each other, Sam horrified that he was going to fight the Others directly again, and Edd complaining, “Oh, fuck me, I have to bloody fight the Others. I couldn’t just die in my sleep.” 

As the camera continued panning down a line of fighters waiting for the first charge, Hodor heard a gasp from Brienne. She leaned over to Jaime and said, “She isn’t scarred. How…”

Her knight patted her hand. “I don’t know, but look, wench, we’re together. And Podrick is there, safe and sound.”

Brienne smiled at him, the motion pulling at her bitten cheek. Jaime didn’t even seem to notice her injury. He’d had 14 years to get used to it, and unlike their television counterparts, they’d noticed and accepted the romantic and sexual subtext running through their scenes long ago. Hodor had read them. How some readers didn’t see the sexual imagery in their swordfight, Hodor would never understand. 

And then Jon and Daenerys came on the screen. All the Northerners gasped. Jon himself looked shocked. Both of them did, actually. Nothing like seeing yourself alive long after experiencing your own death. 

Daenerys’s group continued to whisper, mostly in Valyrian and Dothraki, as Melisandre lit their arakhs on fire, the Dothraki charged, and they were killed in mass numbers. 

The Stark sisters shared glances when they saw themselves on the ramparts of Winterfell, instead of in Braavos and at the Gates of the Moon as they’d last seen themselves. Both girls looked tentatively pleased. 

Jon rode a dragon, and book Jon Snow just sat there with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open. Daenerys shot him confused and angry glances. No one else had ever ridden a dragon in the books. The dragons hated other people, men in particular. Quentyn Martell could testify to that, but the show had never included him so he had never attended the viewings. He and his sister Arianne were especially irritated by that. 

The episode rolled on, the characters scooting chairs closer to the television. A few times they asked him to rewind the footage. It was a night battle, but even so it was dark and often hard to see. More than once, Hodor heard a character insist that they must have died offscreen. Davos complained mightily that he’d been given one job and failed at it due to low visibility. Jaime noted that he should have killed his own men at least a dozen times because the lighting was so poor.

The muttering grew louder as the episode progressed. Hodor walked the room, refilling wine goblets liberally. The disparate groups started talking to each other, barriers between them falling in their mutual confusion and horror. The question they all had was “who is the Night’s King?” They had never even encountered a singular leader of the Others, or gotten much hint what their endgame was, or if they even had one. That was part of the terror of them, the utterly alien intelligence behind them. 

When the Night’s King survived dragonfire, smirked, and raised the fallen human soldiers, Jaime cursed loudly and said, “We’re fucked.” 

For once, Brienne didn’t chastise him. She shakily confirmed, “They’re all going to die.  _ We’re  _ all going to die.”  

Hodor didn’t tell them it wasn’t the final episode, though only three remained according to Thursday. 

Alayne Stone, Varys, and Tyrion shared a long, horrified look across the room as they realized their characters were trapped in a crypt with all the women, children, and the unquiet bones of her Stark ancestors. Screams rose on the screen and Brienne made a choked sound. She’d always had a soft spot for the helpless.

Arya Stark hissed at the screen as Melisandre had the audacity to repeat Syrio Forel’s words, but she started nodding as her character left relative safety with purpose, abandoning the Hound with the red woman and Beric’s corpse.

The Essos contingent’s angry Valyrian muttering grew louder than Daenerys was stranded on the ground among the wights, protected only by a failing Jorah Mormont. The queen cried as he was struck again and again in her defense. He rested a hand on her shoulder.

And then the Night’s King approached the godswood, music swelling and time slowing. The characters had slowly migrated closer together, all watching in mute horror. Jaime had an arm around Brienne, whose foot tapped restlessly. Stannis was audibly grinding his teeth, until Davos elbowed him none too gently. No One leaned forward, watching the unfolding catastrophe. Jon Snow watched himself trying in vain to get past the massive undead dragon. The characters could no longer maintain any distance, speaking encouragement to the TV as if it would make any difference. 

Theon and Reek slipped quietly out of the room after they died on-screen. Died bravely, in defense of the Starks. Those Starks present watched him go with new respect in their eyes. Young Sansa even cried for him. 

And then Arya Stark flew up out of nowhere with her dagger in her left hand. The characters gasped, and then Sansa and Alayne both cried, “No!” as the Night’s King grabbed her by the throat. Hodor dropped the flagon of wine, splashing it all over the other characters. No one moved. The room went dead silent.

She dropped the dagger… to her other hand, and plunged it deep into the Other’s belly. He shattered into a million shards, and Davos burst out, “Thank the gods. That was close.”

The scene shifted, as the undead dragon poised to kill Jon Snow with color blue flame collapsed in a heap in the courtyard, and wights dropped where they stood.

All the characters started muttering again. “Did we make it?” Podrick asked. 

They watched, with relieved sighs rising as each character improbably escaped death. With Theon gone, the only characters present who had just witnessed their own demise were Beric, who seemed relieved, Jorah, who faced it stoicly, and Edd, who was resigned. “Never thought I’d last that long anyway,” he said with a grunt. 

Finally Stannis said what they were all thinking. “I cannot understand how that came to be.” 

A chorus of agreement rose from the characters, and Hodor slipped from the group to get more wine. Usually they left immediately, but this experience seemed to have shocked all of them into a moment of bonding. He didn’t mind prolonging that. 

Hodor grabbed two flagons of good wine and some contrabrand snacks he’d been saving for another time, and went to sit with his characters. Just this once, he could be one of them, and not apart keeping things going behind the scenes. 

As far as he was concerned, this was the last time he would allow them to watch the show. Let them know that the fight for humanity was coming, and that they would prevail. The rest were details that were unlikely to match what they’d seen. And if the series was never finished, well, he would help them come to terms with that as well. That was his job, and he would see it through. 


End file.
